


A Midsummer Nightmare

by Megumi



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Coming Out, Crimes & Criminals, Drama, Foursome - M/M/M/M, Gen, M/M, Medical Kink, Medical Trauma, Mind Control, Romance, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 22:57:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megumi/pseuds/Megumi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg was sitting in his favorite bar when somebody shot the guitarist on stage from a dart gun. The weapon made Greg believe this was the case to call Sherlock for, and thus the investigation begins.</p><p>Warning #1: the author is non-English native speaker, thus please tell me of any mistakes you find, I will gladly accept the critique.</p><p>Warning #2: The summary is really vague right now due to the very beginning of the fic. Sex will come in place after chapter 3, and so will the pairings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Heedless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jalina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jalina/gifts).



_‘Ypu were sio wrong...’_ typed Greg furiously, heedless of the annoying misprints. He grabbed the drink - always single-malt, always on rocks - and gulped it down, letting an audible sigh out afterwards. The evening has come to the stage of the drunk-text-to-the-ex, the one DI Lestrade usually considered the penultimate bane of such lonesome nights in the _Poirot_. Not that he disliked the idea of being utterly insensible because of the little spirited companion named alcohol floating around in his blood, no - in fact, that was one of the best moments of the week, the Friday night finally-resting-from-the-Metropolitan-Police-relaxation. The thing that bothered Greg was the pesky detail: he could never knock himself out enough to forget how to push those little sensor buttons on the gorilla glass screen, thus sending one drunk text after another.

As a matter of fact, the only thing Greg thought to be more detestable than that was loneliness.

The feeling of this truly terrifying seclusion within the contraption of his own home forced him once to wander around the streets of the East End, listening to cockneys and Jafaicans in their desperate attempts to gain the class and inimitable authority. Oh, those youngsters in their bloom, when the scariest abomination of all is to catch the eye of the police, and the cruelest prank to pull on a fellow one is to make him drink from the john. Lestrade was strolling down the East End for a while that night, reminiscing about his own happy-go-lucky years.

It was then when he stumbled upon the _Poirot_ \- a small bar hidden in a dead end on the Old Street. The initial disgust he felt towards the fake chalk outlines and the precaution ‘Do not cross’ signs on the loo doors - for God’s sake, they were making fun of his very own occupation, weren’t they? - though quickly faded as he saw the menu. The favorite of his, Glendronach, was poured here for a mere fiver - the price he’d never seen before. Moreover, the bartender slyly winked at him when asked to not dilute the aqua vitae, and got the rocks from somewhere underneath the bar.

Since that night, Greg grew quite accustomed to his own small tradition of coming to the _Poirot_ every Friday. It was quite a ride from the New Scotland Yard, and yet he cherished those moments of social desolation - as a rule, the bar was half-empty, the musicians did not even bother with playing anything more than the tuning notes and a couple of occasional chords, and Jeremiah - the bartender - liked the small talk of Greg’s, not to mention his tips.

Yeah, the beginnings of weekends in the favorite detective-themed bar were indeed the getaways much needed by the DI, especially in the weather like this. Thunder stroke again, preceding the very bright lightning.

Lestrade snorted at his buzzing smartphone.

_‘Greg, honestly, it’s 3am, I’m sleeping. I think you need to go home and get some rest.'_

'Rest, huh! She better tell me why she cheated with a g-g-gurl-l-l!’ he exclaimed thickly, hitting the bar with his fist and looking at Jeremy with a fierce expression of chagrin. ‘And to hear hurr say that... that I was too... well... not quite innocent, y’know! She has no right!'

Jeremy got distracted from drying the beer glasses with the towel thrown upon his shoulder, now looking at Greg with sympathy.

'Of course she hasn’t, buddy, of course she can’t just say that,’ he agreed, continuing to wipe the glass until it squeaked under his fingers. ‘But didn’t you really do that too?'

‘I did,’ Greg replied with some rather doubtful conviction after giving it some thought. ‘But still! She has no right of telling me... ah, why even bother. For crying out loud, the bloody woman divorced me.’

‘That’s for sure. Another go?’ Jeremy nodded at the empty glass in front of Greg.

‘Nah... I’m good. Although... yeah, let’s go for the last one,’ the latter turned with a languid movement, whistling at the guitarist on the improvised little stage. ‘Hey chief, let’s hear some music!’

‘Right on, Greg!’ the musician saluted him with a pick. He tuned the guitar - sometimes Lestrade wondered whether it was some ritual of the bar band, since they practically never played the instruments. Greg seriously doubted that guitars could get out of tune just laying around, while the musicians did nothing. However, the band started playing, interrupting his thoughts. The first chords were quite random, and the drummer clearly had one too much to drink tonight, since the rhythm was dancing along with the tipsy couple who got out of their table and started circling the tables slowly. Kyle, the guitarist, was quite good though, not letting too much echo get onto the nerves of the crowd - albeit Greg didn’t really care. The music, however bad, helped him to forget about the words that slipped out of his ex-wife’s mouth about a month ago.

_‘What did you expect, little poof?’_

Lestrade shut his eyes tightly at the sound of another thunder strike, trying to get away from the upper lip lifted in disdain, from the scornful look, from the hatred in his once-beloved’s voice.

Suddenly he heard a short scream, a sound of something... falling?

He opened his eyes to find himself in complete darkness. The lights must have gone off because of the lightning, as Lestrade heard Jeremy hastily trying to find some candles. Greg got up and found his way behind the bar by touch.

‘Hey, where is the circuit breaker?’ he asked, trying to locate the small box door he saw a couple of weeks earlier behind the bartender’s back.

‘It’s right there,’ Jeremy turned to him, holding a lit candle. ‘Great, thanks, Greg.’

The lights went back on, and Lestrade headed back to his seat - only to notice on the way that the guitarist was lying on the floor, and the rest of the band looked horrified with the view of him facing the back wall. Something about Kyle’s pose gave away the seriousness of the event, perhaps, the unnaturally twisted ankle, or maybe the overall gravity of his body, which seemed to be heavier than usual.

Greg leaped to the stage, getting his badge out, ‘DI Gregory Lestrade, Metropolitan Police! Everyone, clear of the stage!’

Already standing on stage, he kneeled by the body. He checked Kyle’s pulse, unwittingly touching a thick chain with a locket hanging around the musician’s neck. Having the death verified, Greg blankly stated, ‘Dead. Don’t move anywhere, any of you.’ He looked over the body, noting that the only visible damage was caused to his jeans, tearing them open at Kyle’s thigh. It was a murder, and the little metal head seen peeking in between the threads was what killed him - or at least Greg’s preliminary conclusion was such.

It was hard enough to think with his mind fogged with the amount of Scotch he drank, but to admit that he had to not only call Donovan, but also let Sherlock know of what happened. Greg absolutely positively did not want to let the consulting detective see him drunk. Nonetheless, he had no choice: having only seen briefly the weapon of choice, he knew immediately that he would not manage to solve this case without Sherlock. He knew Donovan would dismiss him tonight because of the intoxication, but he also was quite sure that her and Anderson would never let Sherlock and John see the scene.

_‘Poirot on Old St. Murder, just now. Dart gun.’_

That should do it, a short informative text. Soon enough they would be there, both of them. In the meanwhile Greg, of course, called the police, even if slightly later than he should have, cutting Sherlock some slack. He headed back to the bar to talk to Jeremy, when a customer rose from his seat in the very corner. He slowly walked towards Greg, with a smile so likable Lestrade double checked the number of empty Scotch glasses on the bar. He only had five, it could not be that all at once he would be attracted to a short guy with an ugly scar running through his face from cheek to cheek over the philtrum.

‘Hi, I’m Oliver. Couldn’t help but overhear that Kyle is dead,’ he said with a guilty smile, looking even more charming, if that was even possible. ‘A nice guy, I saw him a couple of times. Listen, I have some knowledge of how to deal with crime scenes, let me help you - Lestrade, was it?’ he extended a hand to shake Greg’s.

To say that the latter was surprised was to say nothing - he was rarely approached by the witnesses of the crime scene, let alone being offered help from them. He started thinking, audibly grinding the gears within the contraption of his skull - it seemed like his brain consisted of bells, and those would not stop ringing.

‘Uhm... thank you, dear sir, but I believe I can handle this,’ Lestrade cleared his throat and politely shook his head, immediately regretting this decision and grabbing the chair to prevent the inevitable fall.

‘Maybe I can bring something to you? A glass of water? A cup of coffee?’

The more the stranger talked in the quiet yet squeaky voice of his, the more peculiar the situation became. Lestrade tried to find a flaw in Oliver’s impeccably amiable and lovely manners, but failed to notice any. He squinted, looking all over the slender figure, trying to be Sherlock.

 

***

_Meanwhile at Baker St. 221B_

‘Sherlock, why are you up?’ John yawned, crawling out of his bedroom in a mere bathrobe thrown over his shoulders in a nonchalant manner.

‘There has been a murder in that disgusting lousy bar Lestrade keeps going to - what was its name? _Marple_? _Wolf_?’ Sherlock answered in that famous vexed tone of his, pulling on his trousers in a hurry.

‘ _Poirot_ , and you know that. And please take the key, I have work in the morning,’ John yawned again, heading back to his room.

‘You are coming with me, John.’

As usual, Sherlock was not asking or offering, he was stating the fact as if John was his property. That was annoying most of the times, but not when he added...

‘The victim was killed with a dart gun. There aren’t many of those floating around in the Thames.’

John groaned. Of course there weren’t - the dart guns were used by the military. At least those which were capable of killing a man, not a duckling or something of sort. The respectable Dr. Watson, MD, walked slowly towards his pants - this time they somehow ended up hanging from the closet doorknob, even though John had no idea when that had happened. He didn’t even try to hurry up, as he knew Sherlock would wait for him anyway - even Sherlock wouldn’t dare to hurry a tired medic after a double shift.

‘Could you move a bit faster? I want to get there before that Scotland Yard printer’s devil.’

‘Anderson is a criminalist, Sherlock,’ John responded calmly, fitting his belt in the trousers. ‘Besides, any dart gun poison will remain in the system for quite a long time, if I still remember the military medicine correctly.’

‘All right, all right, but still move faster, I want to be there first.’

Sometimes Sherlock reminded John of a child. Of course, the last sentence would be much more accurate, if by “sometimes” you meant “nearly always”. Perhaps, that was the reason why John looked at Sherlock with a gentle smile but remained silent. He put some pedantic attention to the process of buttoning his shirt and putting on his coat, only after that nodding to Sherlock.

‘Let’s go. Only...’ John chuckled at the expectation of Sherlock’s face expression, ‘first you have to kiss me before leaving for work.’

His forecast was duly. Sherlock looked surprised, perplexed, and annoyed altogether. The speed with which he jerked the door of their apartment and his overall nervousness were truly a delightful view.

Or at least that’s what John thought.


	2. Imprudent

Sherlock looked around. His upper lip curled a bit, leaving the impression that the genius smelled something bearing a resemblance to a particular sort of seabirds excrements. John knew that expression on Sherlock’s face, and he knew exactly what caused it. Of course, Sherlock’s taste was not as exquisite as that of his older brother, but nonetheless, the cheap tricks designers used to make this place look more “criminalistic” were the cheapest John recalled ever seeing in his life. Perhaps, that was why he dragged the disgusted consultant detective towards Lestrade, whom John noticed a couple of minutes earlier - the DI was sitting at the bar downstairs from the main foyer.

‘So what happened here exactly?’ he asked, looking around and sniffing the air. Greg must have drank to his limit again, he noted to himself.

‘It’s obvious, John,’ Sherlock said in the irritated voice of his. John muttered something under his breath, which Gregory could not sort out exactly. Sherlock, however, seemed to understand his flatmate perfectly well.

‘When will you stop doing this? I do _not_ \- I repeat, I do not - have exact number of intonations, and please do mind that they are as variable as the solutions my mind offers as options of actual explanations to the criminal entanglements the outlaws pose on us,’ Sherlock knitted his brows quite characteristically.

‘Oh no, Sherlock, you do have exactly fifty three irritated voices. Plus or minus two, if you count those you make in bed,’ John smirked and patted his partner on the shoulder. ‘But, if it’s of any consolation, there are also seventy two angry noises and forty-something notions of amusement and bewilderment that your face can express.’

John would most probably be pleased to know that at the exact moment Sherlock attempted to compute whether his eternal chronicler was right about the number of tints in his speech and articulation habits. Unfortunately for the genius, the face he pulled while pondering that subject could still be encountered in John’s list - particularly under the title of “the bewilderment grimace #32”.

‘Gentlemen, there has been a murder,’ Greg reminded both his friends in a rather tired voice. ‘Please set your cute altercations aside for now. I could really use some of Sherlock’s genius on the stage there… oh, and John, would you happen to know any quick sober-up recipes?’

‘Why, of course. Get some rest, drink about three quarts of water, go to the loo as often as you can, and in about a day you will be as good as new,’ John sniffed in disapproval, watching Sherlock enthusiastically inspect the corpse.

‘John, I know you gave an oath to help those in pain. Please have some mercy.’

‘I am deadly serious. With the amount of alcohol you consumed, there is nothing you can do, Greg, besides going home. Don’t worry, we will take care of the dead guy. And I’m quite sure that Sherlock will have an expert opinion about the poison before Anderson even gets here.’

‘That sounds great. In fact, bed sounds great, too,’ Greg agreed with a quiet sigh. John understood his hesitation, he knew that it was simply unbearable to leave the crime scene while it was still so fresh. He knew how hard it was to give up the opportunity of a hot pursuit, but he was also way too well aware of the fact that a drunk one is of no help in such deeds - so he helped Greg off the barstool and escorted him to the exit, patting the friend lightly on the back at the door:  
‘I know it’s not easy to leave now, but think of it as of you being a true professional, Greg.’

‘Yeah, right… Hey, don’t forget about Oliver, he might be of help,’ Lestrade answered a bit thickly, suddenly remembering about his new acquaintance.

‘Oliver?’

‘The guy with the scar… you’ll see him,’ Greg waved his hand at the bar and said no more, whistling for a cab.

John shrugged. His Atlas scrunched, reminding of the night spent at the sofa thanks to the bad mood of a certain consultant detective. It was most certainly not healthy to continue running off to the living room every time Sherlock scolded him. Especially when he scolded him for nothing… and outside of their _normal_ kink routine.

John stopped for a minute, contemplating the beginnings of how it began - this odd, yet very attractively enjoyable relationship they had now for almost four months.

***

_In retrospection_  
John knew something was wrong the very first minute he saw that look on Sherlock’s face. It was queer. If John had any idea of how Sherlock expresses emotions, he would suggest that his flatmate had just encountered a Stradivari violin in place of his own one - and, in case of the younger Holmes, this wouldn’t necessarily mean a positive change. Sherlock liked things to be stable - or at least so John thought.

‘Has something happened?’ he asked softly, recalling the details of his psychiatric manual on how to speak with those in disturbed state of mind.

‘N… no,’ Sherlock stumbled, and that was even more disturbing than the fact that he was shocked. ‘I mean, no, nothing happened, and you better not ask again.’

‘Okay, now that’s something I have never heard from you before, Sherlock. I believe you called me your friend, and that is not to mention I am a doctor. Does something bother you? Is this about your health? Your family?..’ John started guessing, seeing that Sherlock’s face almost froze - approximately at the second John pronounced the first letter of “friend”. He did not pay attention that time though - to his own misfortune. ‘Sherlock, what is it? Is it a case? Something related to Mycroft’s business? Oh, don’t tell me it’s Mrs. Hudson.’

That time the doorbell saved Sherlock, and John failed to notice the small blush on his friend’s cheeks. However, a week later he finally realized that whenever he entered the room, Sherlock’s face started to redden a bit, and his fingers, wherever they were at the moment, stumbled and tangled. It took him another good day to put everything together and understand that something about himself was the reason of Sherlock’s rather peculiar behavior.

He did not even consider anything intimate at that time - after all, he, John Watson, MD, _was_ the person to know the exact meaning of the word “sociopath”, even if the aforementioned one was highly functioning. So he confronted Sherlock with the most logical explanation.

‘Sherlock, is something wrong with me that you see? Should I be worried? Is it some kind of a disease that you happen to know of, but no one else does?’

To his awe, Sherlock burst into laughter. He cackled and chuckled for some good five minutes, before he wiped off the happy tears and managed to squeeze out a few words.

‘No… nothing of sort, John. It’s nothing of sort.’

And so he left John puzzled - for yet another day. Later John would often remind Sherlock of how stupid it was to lose the precious time in this game of hide-and-go-seek-a-clue-of-why-Sherlock-Holmes-blushes-at-the-very-sight-of-you. To this Holmes would simply answer that it was only due to the idiocy of one certain doctor, who was unable to put two and two together.

Nonetheless, John remembered exactly how embarrassed and confused Sherlock seemed the first time John actually dared to ask him directly.

‘Sherlock, are you experiencing any feelings towards me?’ he asked then suspiciously, perhaps, even more afraid to know that the answer would be “yes”, than to accept the possible rejection. 

That was also exactly the reason why John froze at the growing silence, not particularly brave enough to open his eyes and look at Sherlock. He only did so a minute later, and seeing the blush on his friend’s cheeks at once told him that it was, in fact, true.

John mumbled something very quietly, and for the first time Sherlock did not burst out in irritation, but asked politely, what it was.

That wasn’t the first time in John’s life when he wanted to kiss a man. It was just the first time he actually did it - and Jesus Christ, did it feel good to feel Sherlock’s narrow yet full lips on his own, exploring, wondering, amazed, just as Sherlock himself always appeared to John.

It wasn’t until two weeks later that they decided to move it further to the bedroom, and it took the two another month to start sleeping in the same bed instead of running between the rooms in the middle of the night.

***

_Meanwhile in Poirot_  
John recalled his first night spent in the warm, strong arms of his lover, and the feeling of comfort in the small of his back rushed once again through his spine, delivering the secure sensation towards the brain. It was actually fascinating, how comfortable Sherlock was to sleep with, taking his peeking bones into account. John smiled, taking another small step up the stage and looking at Sherlock.

‘So what was it that killed the poor guy?’

‘I don’t know.’

These were the words John rarely heard from Sherlock. He looked at the genius, hesitant to approach the corpse, as he doubted he would be of help.

‘Why? Lestrade mentioned a dart gun, isn’t there a sign of poison?’

‘Not that I can register like this. I will need to work in the lab to know if it was a cardiac arrest. Then we will at least know if it was a standard poison they use in blow darts.’

John finally approached the corpse and suddenly raised his brows in surprise.

‘Sherlock, I don’t think it was a blow dart gun. Look…’ he kneeled beside the body and retrieved a piece of broken glass with a ziplock bag he was holding in his hand. ‘Shattered glass and metal shavings. It must be military, and actually a bit old.’

‘I know it was a military dart gun, don’t make me explain everything! Alkaloid poisons are easier to obtain, and an older military gun could have been an heirloom of some sort, or it could’ve been just dumped, John,’ Sherlock was obviously irritated. ‘Moreover, look at his position, he is not relaxed as he would be if his death was caused by a heart attack. He did not expect the fall, as his arms were not extended, however, he slipped and broke his ankle, which suggests the murderer was standing at the distance of about twenty feet and three inches in that direction,’ Sherlock was uttering the word at the speed of light, as usual, pointing in the direction of the bar. The colorful and rich manner of speech of his painted the whole picture to John, as if he was there and could see in the dark. ‘The murderer’s height would most probably be around 5’4”, as the projectile is almost straight, however, I am almost certain it is a male, as this particular model of dart gun’s ballistics depend on the strength of the holder, and the depth of dart intrusion corresponds to someone with a strong biceps, which is unusual of a female, and since the gun is old enough to be obsolete for the owner to have it from his army days I would suggest it is not a current military man, but a civilian. I will need the security tapes to establish the actual dynamics, but the general picture is clear.’

‘Amazing,’ John whispered, looking at Sherlock and then inspecting the body once again. 

Everything Sherlock said was logical, pieces fell into their places. However, something bothered John. Something related to the gun, something about it was not right, and this itch required continuous scratching - perhaps, for another day or two, before it would come to him. John frowned. He hated that feeling.

Somebody hemmed behind him. John turned around to see a short man in a coat too warm to wear indoors. He immediately saw that it was the guy Lestrade talked about, as the scar was impossible to ignore.

‘Good evening, if I might say so in the circumstances,’ the stranger said in an adorably charming way. ‘I’m Oliver, Oliver Dally. I understand you are not affiliated with the police, sir?’

‘No, we are not… and who exactly are you?’

‘Oh, just a bystander, sir,’ Oliver smiled disarmingly. ‘I was in the loo when this happened, and I am a huge fan of detective books and telly series, so I thought, that, maybe...’

‘I am sure we can handle this,’ John caught himself on smiling back, and was surprised to find his hand on Oliver’s shoulder, patting him lightly. ‘Thank you for your willingness to help, though. I’m sure the police will arrive soon.’

‘I will most certainly share what I can with them too, sir,’ Oliver just couldn’t stop smiling, could he?  
‘But I wanted you to have this information too. You are Dr. Watson, am I right? And that behind the poor fellow is, I presume, Mr. Holmes?’

‘Yes, that is right, and how do you…?’

‘I am a huge fan of books, and your blog appears to become a rather lengthy one, sir,’ Oliver chuckled. ‘Ah, anyway. I was coming out of the bathroom when the lights came back on, and I saw a tall man leave the bar in a hurry. He was wearing a long coat, and he might have hidden something underneath it.’

John meant to thank the witness himself, jotting down his words, when he was interrupted by the deep voice.

‘Thank you very much, Mr. Dally. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated.’

Sherlock put his arm around John’s shoulders. ‘Unfortunately, we need to leave now.’

‘That’s right, freak.’  
Officer Donovan was coming down the stairs, followed by Anderson.  
‘You both need to leave. Oh, and tell Lestrade that we will definitely report this little debauchery of his to the Chief.’

‘Donovan, you live nearby, and it took you twice as long to get here than us,’ John snorted of disdain. ‘We are leaving anyway. Also, Anderson, don’t bother looking up the model of the dart gun, it might take you good three days to find out that it’s the CS-35*.’

The Scotland Yard criminalist squinted at John’s remark, but chose to remain silent for some reason, instead getting up the stage.

***

 _In the cab_  
Sherlock and John were already on their way to Baker St. when Sherlock sniffed: ‘I bet tomorrow they both will be canting at how fast they reacted to the news and how smart Anderson was at figuring out the model of the gun.’

‘I bet that’s exactly how they will put it in the press release,’ John smiled back at his lover, touching his hand briefly in the anticipation of the rest of the night spent in the endless cycle of making coffee and contemplating the details of the case.

Sometimes John attempted to compare solving cases with Sherlock to having sex with him. Needless to say, the comparison was only in half the cases in the benefit of the latter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *The model number is fictional, but the dart gun usage story is based on the true fact of that CIA once had a classified project MKNAOMI.


	3. Unhinged

‘Sherlock, may I ask you something?’ asked John with a bit of hesitation. He knew Sherlock was already out of his “mind palace”, and judging by the notoriously known facial expression of the ennui, Sherlock arrived at a rather unsatisfactory conclusion at the end of his contemplations on the personality of the murderer.

‘What?’ he replied with the great amount of vexation.

Of course, he was pissed. The case that started out in such a promising way was turning out to be a trivial killing - John researched military projects of the past whilst Sherlock was tying together the preconceived phenotype of the killer and his possible motives, and they both arrived at the deduction that it was most probably a male, perhaps, a former classmate or an acquaintance of the victim, who had the most banal revenge in mind when grabbing the old gun which lain around the house since his father went to his war friend or something. The technicalities would, of course, be untangled by the NSY guys, but the general picture was clear even to John. Thus, he chose to shift the focus of Sherlock’s attention to the subject which was guaranteed to bring him curiosity.

‘Earlier last night, you seemed so disturbed when I joked about the kiss. Is anything wrong?’ he asked as softly as he could.

Sherlock, however, did not appear annoyed at that notion. Instead, he stared at John, puzzled, and then all of a sudden broke into laughter.  
‘Oh John...’ he patted his lover indulgently on the head. ‘I was troubled by the time constraint. Lestrade was waiting for us at the bar, and Mrs. Hudson’s cab should’ve arrived any minute, which, as you know, I might as well formulated as “Mrs. Hudson was going to peek on us returning from her lovely shenanigan with those old dames of hers”. Besides, as you may have noticed, our kisses rarely have no continuations, they usually bear at least some resemblance to the innuendos you drop on me before the bedtime. Finally, Saturday night is coming, and I want to save my energy for that. Explicit enough for you?’

John chuckled and caught his hand, brushing his lips against the prominent _processus styloideus_ : ‘You could have just said that I am an idiot.’

‘That would be too much of a praise for you,’ Sherlock smirked, then pulling John towards himself. ‘But before I can prove you wrong for the one-hundred-and-seventeenth time directly in the bedroom, we need to go to that bar again and check if everything matches up.’

‘Of course,’ John sighed in agreement. He knew that Sherlock was compulsive about these things - his intuition, his deductions, his overall thoughts on the crimes they encountered on the daily basis. He needed to be right, and, unfortunately, proving himself right over John in bed was not even nearly enough for the criminalistic genius.

***

_Half an hour later at Poirot_  
‘I am glad to see that your rehabilitation process went well, Greg,’ John did not fail to affably needle Lestrade, who could have been looking better that morning. ‘Say, do you have anyone in mind as a suspect?’

‘Other than myself? I feel I could murder somebody bloody well today,’ Lestrade gloomily replied, fiddling with his badge. ‘By the look on Sherlock’s face, though, I think he already ruled me out. Is he sure about the hypothesis?’

‘I cannot be fully confident, of course, but I would say, about ninety-nine and a half percent for Sherlock being right this time. Seems like an ordinary revenge killing, nothing too special.’

‘I wouldn’t say so,’ Donovan appeared out of nowhere, holding a piece of paper in front of her, as if it were her laurel crown. ‘See, John, this isn’t a murder at all.’

‘What?’ Sherlock was much faster than John - to be sincere, he was always faster in everything, but this time in particular he jumped not unlike a puma - to grab the paper and start frenziedly devouring the lines of text, mumbling along. ‘Bruising caused by the puncture wound identified as _post mortem_ due to lack of coagulation and swelling around the laceration point… Cause of death unknown with equivocal evidence toward the acute myocardial infarction and intracerebral hemorrhage… wait, they happened at the same time? This thing is supposed to not leave traces like that!’

John, finally tired of waiting to see the autopsy report, whipped it out of Sherlock’s hands and started reading himself. The more he saw, the more surprised he became, as all of their assumptions were suddenly proven wrong.  
The dart was nonlethal. Well, at least not in this guy - from what he saw in the report, John would have sworn on Gray’s Anatomy, that this dose of the poison would have not been enough for this man, let him be skinny, but tall and muscular. Besides, the dart poison was not even as potent as they suggested - rather, the sting from the sharp puncture wound startled him enough to have… a heart attack.

‘Say, Greg, did this guy drink a lot?..’ John looked at Lestrade with some doubt.

‘Kyle? Never saw him with a glass, to be sincere. The drummer guy, George, that is the best drunkard I have met in years, but Kyle - never. I think he even played football back in Uni,’ Lestrade shrugged and peeked into the autopsy report. His eyes widened. ‘This is impossible.’

‘Improbable,’ Sherlock corrected him in an irritated voice and started pacing along the bar. ‘There is something we are missing, John, where is it? Oh, and Anderson, stop doing that.’

‘I have just arrived, Sherlock.’

‘Well, stop trying to squeeze a single thought out of your dinosaur-calibrated mind, the audible grinding of the gears distracts me,’ snapped Sherlock, pacing back and forth. Suddenly he stopped in front of the glass cabinet, looking at the mirror in the back, behind a bottle of Southern Comfort. Something in the glare must have tipped him off, because the next moment both the bottle and the mirror were shattered by his inexorable hand. 

Everyone stared at the little wireless camera. Silence was only broken by John’s nervous laughter: ‘Say cheese, Sherlock. I recognize that one, it belongs to your brother.’

That was a prophecy of a sort, that joke John made about the cheese, since a minute later someone’s calm voice called on Sherlock: ‘I presume you will be willing to pay for that glass, Sherlock. Otherwise it is another case of me being responsible for your demolitions of public property - just as in fifth grade, remember?’

‘It was an experiment on the ballistic trajectories, Mycroft,’ Sherlock didn’t even care to turn around. ‘Why the bloody hell would you of all people install a camera in a shitty bar?’

‘As you can remember, little brother, I never trust my secret service, and now you see the proof to my incredulity. I never ordered a surveillance of this lovely pub,’ Mycroft smiled politely, resting his hand on the knob of a simple yet elegant cane.

Sherlock gazed over his brother. Having observed remarkably few points of suspicion, he nonetheless smirked: ‘Please turn off that recorder and tell your guys to not hesitate and come in. I imagine it should be rather hot outside, and they must - as always - be wearing those flashy suits you call their uniforms.’

Mycroft hemmed in approval, clicking an obscure button on the head of the cane and then nodding to somebody whom he must have seen in the mirror. Three men in the suits proceeded immediately inside the bar, looking at Sherlock with some sort of gratitude. While two of them stood around Mycroft, the third walked to the camera and inspected it, then brusquely turning it over and nodding: ‘Jones.’

‘What did he need that for?’ one of the men asked surprisedly.

‘Oh, I remember, he said something about his wife and cheating. Isn’t she a waitress here?’ recalled the third, carefully stepping backward from Mycroft, who was certainly not pleased to hear that.

‘The British nation...’ he started, gaining a deep breath, when stopped by John.

‘Oh come on, Mycroft, it does not cost more than fifty pounds. I am pretty sure the poor man would pay those out of the pocket if he saw you right now. Anyway, can we see the tape?’

‘I presume so. Lawrence, call Jones here,’ Mycroft watched his employee walk out of the bar with a partly scary smile. ‘But Sherlock, do you really need the tape? I heard there had been a dart gun involved.’

‘A CS-35, yes,’ John confirmed, looking at the older Holmes with interest.

‘Well, isn’t it transparent that none of the current military lethal personnel dart compounds are capable of causing such immense cardiovascular effects? They are designed, Sherlock, to be faster than that - etorphine, usually.’

‘There were no signs of etorphine, according to the histological report. In fact, all they could find was a little cyanide and some standard mercury-shattered glass mixture,’ Donovan explained, snatching the paper out of John’s hand.

‘Then the dart was not what killed him,’ Mycroft shrugged, walking towards the bar and grabbing the camera, as a man entered the room, looking very guilty, and he immediately tried to explain himself to the older Holmes, but the latter would not even care to listen. ‘Jones, explain these fine policemen where to extract the footage, and then you may feel free to go.’

‘But Mr. Holmes...’

Mycroft smiled unpleasantly, and the agent gulped before starting to explain.

‘The tapes are stored online, at the web server. Here are the SSH credentials,’ he handed Lestrade a card.

‘You may excuse yourself now,’ Mycroft sneered calmly. ‘Don’t forget to turn in your badge.’  
The now former employee of the secret service walked resignedly up the stairs, not daring to look up. Lestrade glanced at his gait and signed: felt some sympathy towards the fellow, who was most probably just too invested into his work, and found this as the only way to pay attention to his wife.

Sherlock shook his head in disapproval: ‘I understand how important that power must make you feel, Mycroft, but do you really think this little camera is worth an employee? I would suggest he would be more devoted to you after such a wonderful salvation from the doom of unemployment with the helping hand of the merciful God by the name of Mycroft Holmes.’

‘I would prefer, Sherlock, if you would keep your nose out of my business. You have a murder to solve, are you not excited?’

‘Oh, I most certainly am. In fact, we are leaving to see the lovely Mrs. Hooper for her expert opinion on that guy’s favorite poison. Come on, John!’ Sherlock commanded, leaping up the ladder. John did not make him wait this time, feeling almost uncomfortable to be around Mycroft right now.

***

_Fifteen minutes after John and Sherlock left, in the ominous silence_  
‘So… Greg, we are going to go run some tests,’ Sally informed her boss and quickly disappeared along with Anderson. The tension has been quite high, and Lestrade was physically sensing the air getting dense.

The other two agents of Mycroft’s have left as well, leaving the two men alone at the crime scene. Lestrade looked at the older Holmes with an obvious question in his eyes: ‘What is their problem?’

‘I don’t happen to have the answer to that. Would you think they have tea in here?’  
‘It’s _Poirot_. Of course, they have tea,’ Greg sniffed and walked to the bar. ‘Good ol’ Earl Grey or some fancy Darjeeling?’

‘Earl Grey. With milk.’

Lestrade raised his brows in surprise, but remained silent, just turning on the electric kettle and getting the pot out of the closet. ‘I would think that you prefer something more… exquisite, so to speak.’

‘Oh, I am not very picky. Besides, I would believe you know your tea as well as you know your scotch,’ Mycroft grinned. ‘Or your men.’

Greg stopped swirling the boiling water around the pot, looking up rather carefully: ‘How do you mean?’

‘Come on, Inspector, by know I would imagine you’d be used to our little familial hobby named “deduction”. Besides, it doesn’t take much to notice the obviosity how your looks of envy are addressed not at John or Sherlock in particular but them _together_ , how your subconscious directs your fine, almost unnoticeable movements to fix your collar only when you are speaking to men...’ Mycroft seemed as bored as Sherlock would be on a regular Sunday. However, his cajolingly charming smile was giving out something else about his intentions, only Greg hasn’t yet figured out, what Mycroft had on his mind. In the meanwhile, older Holmes finished him with his last sentence. ‘But most of all, you haven’t glanced at your subordinate Sergeant’s cleavage once this morning, while she has most certainly made it appeal to you, the way she demonstrated it only here.’

Lestrade’s eye twitched. He brew the tea almost mechanically, not even paying attention to the position of the strainer or the color of the tea itself. Finally, he found the words which seemed appropriate enough. ‘How… how dare you?’

‘If I were straight, I would be offended by this. But Gregory, those that I listed are just the facade features of your otherwise almost impeccable mask,’ Mycroft’s smile grew wider. Accepting the cup and a saucer from Greg’s hands, he looked at him knowingly. His next words sounded as if they were an invitation from an elder, a word of wisdom to somebody beginning their path. ‘It takes intelligence, you know,’ he sipped his tea and nodded in approval. ‘You certainly know your tea, Greg. _Ex ungue leonem._ ’’

Lestrade has not yet forgotten all he learned in the Uni years ago - he still remembered the bits of Latin. ‘The blush must give me out now, that’s for sure,’ he thought, watching Mycroft’s fingers as they grasped on to the cup’s handle, delicately, yet strongly plucking the invisible strings along the fine porcelain.

Another five minutes passed by, as he watched the man in front of him drink his tea. Greg forgot to pour his own cup, but something magnetic was there in the eyes of the older Holmes. He had power, but it did not come from his visibly perfect suit, not from his shoes, so clean it was difficult to believe Mycroft ever walked outside on the streets of London. No, the strength and willpower were just breathing through the posture, the look and the manners of this man, and Greg found it fascinating. The look Mycroft was giving him right now, the indisputably dirty look send shivers down his spine - as if he was balancing on the brim of sanity, on the borderline between submission and equality.

‘You know, I don’t always travel around the country. Drop by, if you will… say, Thursday?’ Mycroft finally rose from the stool, leaving a small card on the bar.

The next moment, the card was not there.


	4. Broken

_A street someplace in London, around Croydon. Sometime in the 1990s_

'Ouch!' Lei tried to balance herself on the edge of the sidewalk, but fell right down into the puddle. Bruce, who pushed her, just laughed out loud.

'Hey you freak, make us some room!'

'Yeah!' everyone from the gang - the cool guys who hung around with Bruce and Jeff - started cheering and hooting. Even Jimmy, the least unpleasant of them all, started chuckling at the sight of the girl all dripping wet.

Lei looked at her bag. All the books inside were undoubtedly demolished, the copybooks and her notepad - everything must have been just a mush now. The ink in the cheap pens got smudged pretty easily, that she knew from the previous fall a month ago. She ruefully got up and started walking towards the bridge not so far ahead: she was only a couple of more blocks away from home. Lorelei wondered whether her brother would help her if he were there. Too bad he was staying at home that day. Playing sick.

Oh yes, Lorelei knew exactly why he was staying at home. Her brother was never capable of telling their parents the truth. He was lying - always lying, on every single case of conversing with somebody. Their mother, of course, knew that, but still sometimes chose to believe him. Lei secretly suspected that parents just gave up on them two. That wasn’t particularly hard, either - who would actually remember about their kids when there is more fun to have with the vodka bottle and some cards?

Lei kicked a stone forward. She did not mind the squeak her shoes made, nor did she object the feeling of cold water under her feet. She liked the attention she got, and even if it weren’t a particularly nice experience, she still enjoyed the social bonding. Just as Dr. Myers would say: ‘If you learn to find diamonds in every haystack, _Lay-eeh_ , you won’t know sorrow.’  
That’s what she tried to do most of the time, anyway.

In the meanwhile, their house was already around the corner. Lei walked to the front door, sighing at the look of the once again crushed lock, and turned the knob.  
‘Oliver? You home?’

_Barn in the suburbs of London, September 2009_

‘No-o-o-o!’

The quietest, most subtle shriek ever imaginable, came out of Lorelei’s chest. She cried and cried for hours now, which seemed an eternity, she rolled around in agony and hugged her own belly, now much less swollen but still throbbing with pain.

She did not remember how many times she rolled over that damn syringe. It did not help the least, and in that pain she only managed to survive by whispering her brother’s name.

‘Oliver…’

***

_St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, laboratory, late afternoon_

Sherlock nervously paced around the centrifuge, waiting for the lysate to precipitate what he expected to see. 

‘I cannot be wrong this time, Molly, it is simply impossible, you know that, right?’

‘Why are you so anxious, Sherlock? This doesn’t look like you at all,’ Molly shrugged, leaning back in her chair. Since Mrs. Hooper married the lovely Richard, she has been behaving much more adequately around Sherlock. The truth be told, she only started dating other men when so did the respecting Mr. Holmes, but her friendliness was not limited by the childish crush. She still was helping Sherlock with his cases, and she found it fascinating to watch his character become more “human” - as she called it - as their relationship with John progressed.

Sherlock, however, did not appear pleased by her calmness. He paced around for several more minutes, until the centrifuge stopped and blinked, when he anxiously rushed to his microscope with the extracted test tube. Having just briefly glanced in the eyepiece, he grunted: 'It is impossible. He was clearly killed by a poison, and it did not come from the dart.'

'That's for sure,' Molly agreed, rising from her chair and going into the next room to take another look at the body. Her voice was now murmurous, but Sherlock was still able to hear her puzzled question.

‘Why… why didn’t I look at his lungs?..’ Her voice became louder, as she called. ‘Sherlock, you need to see this!’

He hurriedly walked into the room just to see startled Molly next to the open chest of the victim. His lungs, previously neglected because of the hemorrhagic blood, were swollen.

‘Oh God,’ Sherlock stated in shock. ‘It wasn’t ingested, that’s why we are unable to see anything in the GI tract cells. Molly, I will need a sample of his lung tissue.’

‘Don’t you need to be at home by now?’ Molly looked at her watch meaningfully, then showing it to Sherlock.

‘What? No, John can wait, this is more important.’

‘Sherlock, it’s Saturday. You know that John will not wait.’

That was, perhaps, one of the rare moments when Mrs. Hooper was capable of making Sherlock Holmes blush. He hesitated before admitting: ‘You are right. Saturday nights… well, then we need to come here tomorrow and do the test.’

‘You need to come in tomorrow. I don’t work Sundays. I have a husband to be with, you know.’

‘In fact, that is more annoying than I thought it would be,’ Sherlock grimaced, taking off his lab coat and walking towards his chair in the main room.

‘At least it is better for my health, I was on the brim of a burnout,’ Molly shrugged and smirked. ‘But I wish you a pleasant Sunday off of your boyfriend duty - I am oh, so sure that John will totally understand your need to come in and spend the lovely day with the dead guy and his lungs.’

‘Don’t be so witty all of a sudden,’ Sherlock grumbled, wrapping a scarf around his neck. ‘I will take John with me.’

‘Of course,’ Molly blew him a kiss on her way out. ‘Give him my sympathy for being a boyfriend of a workaholic. Ciao, Sherlock.’

‘Arrivederci,’ Sherlock growled out, then looking into his reflection. He has not forgotten about his plans for the night, but, as a matter of fact, he has delved way deeper into this case than he promised himself. To go to the Baker St. and start the _routine_ right away was almost impossible.

But who said Sherlock Holmes has ever done anything less than that?

***

_Two hours later, a small apartment in East End_

Somebody knocked on the door. Mycroft Holmes did not need to peek into the eyehole: the addressee of the only existing card with this location written on it was the one he was meaning to see. He was quite surprised by the speed of decoding, to tell the truth.

‘Glad to see you again, Inspector,’ he greeted Lestrade, letting him in.

‘So am I. Now tell me, why so much conspiracy about the real time? It took me about an hour to get the steganography trick and ten more minutes to decode it.’

‘Ears in the walls, my dear Gregory,’ Mycroft sighed. ‘I need to remain discreet.’

‘That I can relate to,’ Lestrade hemmed. ‘I burned the card, hope you don’t mind.’

Mycroft just smiled, leading Greg into the studio: he made the right choice. He proceeded to pour Lestrade a drink, and while doing so, unobtrusively asked: ‘Now, Gregory, would you prefer something zesty over the dainty vanilla?’

Greg, leaning back on the couch, just smirked: ‘I suppose you are not talking about the dinner here, are you?’

‘You keep surprising me with your quick wit.’

‘I’m a policeman, we need to be fast and clever.’

‘Not necessarily. Most often it is quite the opposite.’

Greg contemplated that remark for a few moments, then agreeing with a sigh: ‘That’s true, to my regret. And, answering your first question, I never minded zesty sprinkles on my vanilla desserts.’

‘Good.’

Mycroft’s laconic answer did have something in it which made Lestrade hesitate for another moment: the power, the steel, the chill it gave him made his heart turn a somersault. It was long since he last did anything like that with another man, and the feelings he had then were now blurry, foggy almost to the point of impalpable; however, Greg was sure that he had never felt that attraction before. The impulse of loosing his necktie was now fighting with the desire for another knot to be tightened. Greg gulped and sipped his drink, noticing the sweet, smoky taste of a great whiskey.

Mycroft sat down next to him, brushing his thigh in a perfunctory manner with his hand. The nonchalance of his gesture somehow made Greg feel even more tense. He realized how sensitive this half-celibate life has made him, and - with some surprise - he understood how different his behavior was when he was with men rather than with women. Of course, it might have only been Mycroft’s powerful voice and that steel rod that he seemed to be digging into Greg’s chest with his eyes. Greg felt Holmes’ strong hand on the back of his neck and the sudden urge to submit that this simple touch brought to him. He shivered.

‘You are quite dominant,’ he simply stated, trying to avoid Mycroft’s mesmerizing eyes.

‘I am,’ Mycroft agreed, brushing his fingertips against Greg’s smoothly shaven cheek bone. ‘But it is not because you are submissive, don’t get alarmed.’

‘I don’t,’ Greg shrugged and took a deep breath before uttering a silent, quick, but very clear word. ‘Plumage.’

‘How extravagant,’ Mycroft laughed softly, pulling Greg towards himself and sealing his lips with a demanding and strong kiss. ‘I will keep that in mind.’

Gregory froze for a moment before delving into the kiss: before tonight, he had yet to find a kisser as good as himself, who would only use their tongue to explore but not asphyxiate, their lips to caress and not sluggishly rub, their teeth to bite with the right amount of power, not aggression.

Luckily, Mycroft Holmes has perfected his kissing skills to the point of absolute excellence.

***

_Baker St. 221B, about the same time_

‘I thought you would never come,’ John reproved mildly, looking up from his book.

‘The case...’ Sherlock almost fell into the trap of his obsession with work, as he knew that John would never stop him talking about the corpses, poisons, methods of murder and other criminalistic trivia. He quickly corrected himself: ‘I got caught up with work. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s alright. You are, after all, home,’ John smiled and rose from his seat, walking towards his lover to give him a light hug.

‘I hope you got the bathroom ready.’

‘It only lacks you and me.’

‘Good,’ Sherlock’s eyes darkened with foretaste of what was going to happen next. It was those moments on Saturdays when he was most grateful for his relationship with John, for their extreme, almost improbable and coincidental compatibility in the quirks of their sexual desires.

He stroke John on the back of the neck, then quietly yet strongly telling him: ‘You go first. I will join you in a few moments.’

And so John did.


End file.
